Thursday, January 15, 2009
National Skyline Steve Knopper on Fresh Air: The Death of the Record Industry
Posted by D Patrick Rodgers on Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Anyone catch yesterday's episode of Fresh Air with Terri Gross on NPR? The Gross Meister's guest was Rolling Stone contributor and author of Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age Steve Knopper. He provided a pretty encompassing synopsis of where the RIAA has gone wrong and where they're headed. A brief run-down of what Knopper had to say after the jump.
- The death of the record industry begins with a boom: the introduction of the CD. Retailers realize immediately that they can jack up prices, and they do so continually. They then charge many artists with retroactive technology fees.
- The DAT tape concerns the record industry. DAT tapes mean users can make pristine copies! The RIAA lobbies with the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
- Burning and ripping show up. The RIAA looks dumb.
- "Big box stores" like Wal-Mart and Target begin to cut prices of their albums to get people into the store to buy refrigerators.
- Napster gets their ass sued, and thus the industry misses their chance to get on board with file-sharing. It was the future of the business and, yet again, the record industry began swinging blindly at the new hip shit they just didn't understand.
- Sony BMG uses copyright protection technology to fuck up folks' computers just for ripping their CDs. Then they sue file-sharing students (i.e. their customers). Record industry looks like a bunch of douches AGAIN.
- And the latest news: iTunes is switching up their prices. Instead of $0.99 for all tracks, they'll charge $0.69 for material from artists' back-catalogs and $1.29 for "hot hits." Copying restrictions have also changed. Downloads through iTunes make it very difficult to play a track on anything but an iPod. Like Best Buy getting people to buy refrigerators by luring them into the store with cheap CDs, Steve Jobs is getting people to buy iPods by doling out cheap digital downloads that don't really work with other mp3 devices. Steve Jobs wins.
So there you have it. It seems like the RIAA consistently remains about three years behind every trend. So each time we, the consumers, become accustomed to something, the suits bust it up. You can stream this episode of Fresh Air for free or sign up for their podcast at their website.
Comments (8)
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wow. they were really bummed about DAT tapes? seems to me they should have stuck with the 8 track. ain't nobody wanting to fuck with that shit
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anybody remember when mini disc first came out? i think there's was like... A michael jackson album and maybe A U2 album or something.... then it was relegated to the back of the Electronics Express walkman counter display until the late 90s when they realized they could hold mp3s. Then came the ipod. The music industry isn't any different than the auto industry that has kept technology under wraps to keep sustained profits and already existing manufacturing and distribution methods.
Oh yeah, the commercial mini disks were a total failure but I still document every show I play on my recorder. That thing is awesome and it's really easy to convert everything to CD or whatever. I love that thing!
patrick, that was an excellent summary of the article. i can tell you were listening. A+
however, i'm not sure the analogy of refrigerators to ipods really works...
Well it's not really my analogy. I think the point Knopper was making is that the RIAA's retarded ass is being pounded by both Steve Jobs and Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc.
They'll serve as a marketplace for the recording industry's little tracks and albums. But neither Apple nor Best Buy makes a significant amount of capital off of the music itself. They make money by A) [if they're Best Buy] getting you in the store with cheap CDs and convincing you while you're there to buy a new computer/fridge/whathaveyou and B) [if they're Apple] selling you cheap-ass tracks you can only play on their merchandise.
Relatively flimsy but overall functional analogy.
WELL! you obviously were listening more closely than i was... I guess my point then is that while "big box stores" were just hoping to get folks into the store to buy unrelated high dollar items (meanwhile undercutting places like grimey's, which is why i will often pay more in order to support my local record, grocery, or hardware store), itunes is basically screwing people into having to buy specifically an ipod apple brand mp3 player in order to even PLAY the cheap music. capitalistically (is that a word yet?) i guess they are the same. but i think the itunes thing is worse. because i can play the cd from best buy on the same cd player as the one from grimey's. i don't have to buy a fridge from best buy that plays best buy cds. right? am i making any sense?
Right on, sister. I read you.
You're right about Apple's transgressions being a bit more egregious. But that's Steve Jobs for you. He cornered the market on paid downloads, and when he saw the big bucks weren't in selling tracks, he made it so we all have to drop far more dollars just to listen to them. Sneaky capitalist shithead.
forces have been conspiring against the indie music retailer for decades and at least some of us are hanging in there. first it was the loss leader practices of the big boxes and now it's the new digital paradigm shift. who knows what will be next. if you want "loveless" by my bloody valentine and it's worth $10 to you for a download, well have at it but you could have the CD with art and tangible goodness for the same price. consumers are smart enough to recognize that a $9.99 CD, with an infinite life-span, the power of choice in digital files and the opportunity for re-sale trumps the $9.99 download. when you can't pay the gas bill, you certainly can't sell your files to scrape together the needed cash.
and if you compare pricing at grimey's to that at big boxes, we often come out equal or cheaper, just not on the current hits, which are often subsidized at that cheap price by co-op dollars paid to best buy and the like. we go to the primary distribution source as much as possible to get the cheapest wholesale price so i can get the margin i need and still offer a retail price below the chain store, which often orders from middlemen one-stop distributors. grimey's currently orders from 112 different vendors to achieve this.
actually i could talk about this all day so i'll just stop and thank coral and everyone else who chooses to make a purchase from a locally-owned retailer. even if you like amazon, consider buying something, every now and then, from the local guy and help assure that he'll be there in the future, whether it be grimey's, the groove, great escape or grand palace (anybody ever wonder why all the indie record stores in nashville begin with "gr"?)
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